Exploring self-forgiveness

This article presents the results of a phenomenological study of the experience of self-forgiveness. On the basis of in-depth interviews with seven subjects, self-forgiveness is described not as an achievement but rather as a gift where one moves from estrangement and brokenness to a sense of at-homeness.This article is based in part on a paper presented at the Eighth International Human Science Research Conference at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, in August 1989. The authors thank their colleagues Carolyn Grissom and Jodi Kelly for their helpful suggestions.     

A self-reinforcement questionnaire

The hypothesis that the tendency to engage in self-reinforcement behavior is measurable by a 30-item true-false questionnaire is supported using self-monitoring as the validity criterion. The use of the self-reinforcement questionnaire has been supported previously by correlating questionnaire scores with frequency of self-reinforcement during simple experimental tasks. In the present study, 53 undergraduates monitored self-reinforcement behavior for 28 days and frequency of self-reinforcement correlated significantly with questionnaire scores as well as experimenter ratings of the tendency to engage in self-reinforcement. The results suggest that the questionnaire is a promising tool for the measurement of self-reinforcement in meaningful settings. The need for further validational evidence is noted and the potential usefulness of the questionnaire in testing hypotheses regarding the relation between self-reinforcement and depression is discussed.     

Two developmental transitions in selective remembering strategies

Two experiments were reported investigating developmental changes in the use of strategies to eliminate interference from irrelevant information in memory. The participants in the first were 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children and those in the second were adults. In both experiments a directed forgetting paradigm was used in which the person was presented two sets of pictures but only recalled one set on a trial. On some trials there was a cue to forget the first set and to remember only the second set. There were two developmental transitions. The first was from ineffective to effective selective remembering which occurred between 7 and 11 years of age. The second, which occurred between 11 years of age and adulthood, was from the use of selective retrieval strategy to a more sophisticated rehearsal strategy. The implications of these two developmental transitions were discussed.     

Effects of sex-linked situations and sex composition on cooperation and style of interaction

One hundred and sixteen undergraduates were randomly assigned to same-sex and mixed-sex dyads. They interacted face-to-face in four different role-playing situations, half of which were female linked and half male linked. These situations were structured to give the participants mixed motives toward each other. Results indicate that sex composition and sex appropriateness of the situations affected the style of interaction more than cooperation. In both the same- and mixed-sex dyads, division of task and maintenance between group members occurred. In mixed-sex dyads, males were task oriented, and females maintenance oriented; presumably, sexual identity was used to make this division. In the same-sex dyads, the distribution of task and maintenance behaviors was worked out in the interaction. Participants rated themselves more knowledgable and were more competitive in female-linked situations than in male-linked ones. Under the conditions of the experiment, sex of the participant and sex composition of the dyad were not found to affect cooperation.     

Counter-stereotypical impulsivity and violence among African American college men

The study examined the relationship between impulse control and violence in terms of past feelings and acts among African American males enrolled in Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Data were gathered from a sample of 1,874 male undergraduates in eleven colleges and universities with predominantly African-American students. Less than six percent were classified as impulsive, and even less than half of the impulsive males had past feelings and acts of violence. The study offers strategies for impulse control which may help to further minimize incidents of violence on the college campus.     

The Church of England Head: the responsibility for spiritual development and transmission of tradition in a multi‐cultural setting[1]

The Anglican Church has a long involvement in the education of children, being originally concerned with the education of the poor. A key feature of early schooling was its religious nature. But what of the role of such an education in today's multi‐faith society? In particular how does the Anglican school see its role in providing for the spiritual development of its pupils? This paper represents an initial enquiry into the role of the Anglican school in providing for pupil's spiritual development in a multi‐faith, yet some would say largely secular society. In particular it begins to examine the role of the head teacher in promoting this area of school life.

     

Coping with employment and family stress: Employment arrangement and gender differences

Increasing numbers of families in the United States are supported by two incomes. Families must cope with the changes this lifestyle brings. This study explored how women and men in various employment arrangements experienced and coped with stress. Data from 82 couples, analyzed separately by gender, suggest that women report significantly more stressors than men, whereas employment arrangement did not have an effect. All couples, however, seem to benefit by reframing their problems to make them more manageable. Perceptual changes families may make to cope with stresses imposed by external factors such as inflexible work hours and lack of adequate child care over which they have less control are discussed.This research was supported by grants from the Graduate Research Board and the Division of Human and Community Resources, University of Maryland, College Park.Acknowledgment is extended to the University of Maryland Computer Center and to Ms. Dell Karig, Ms. Kathleen Cohan, and Ms. Lisa Zelazny for their assistance on this project.     

Aging and Family Personality: A Developmental View

The dramatic numerical and proportional increase in the elderly population has important implications for family dynamics and the family life cycle. This paper considers some of the issues of aging, death, loss, and separation, as they relate to individual and family development and to shifting roles and responsibilities of family members.     

A linguist looks at “schizophrenic” language

The language of some patients diagnosed as schizophrenic is apparently caused by a disruption in the ability to order linguistic elements into meaningful structures. This disruption affects different levels of language at different times, even in the same patient, thus causing six definable characteristics of schizophrenic speech. These characteristics are discoverable only through a linguistic analysis of a corpus of such speech.     

Simultaneous paired associate and verbal discrimination learning as a simulation of the double-function list

In the critical condition, the subject was required to learn associations between words in the pairs and to learn to identify simultaneously the word in each pair that had been underlined on study trials. Over trials, both types of responding were required for each pair. Control conditions were used to assess the influence of these procedures. Paired associate learning was only modestly impaired, but the verbal discrimination learning (identifying the underlined word) appeared comparable to that for a double-function verbal discrimination list. The correlational evidence indicated that insofar as the present procedures simulated a double-function list, the association between the words in a pair is not involved in a causal way for the small amount of learning that occurs across trials in a double-function list.